Carl  dozed  off.  He was  opening a  green door.  A hor-
rible  smell  grabbed  his  lungs  and  he  woke up  with a
shock. The doctor's voice was strangely flat  and lifeless,
a whispering junky voice:
  "The  Kleiberg-Stanislouski  semen   fioculation  test...
a  diagnostic  tool...  indicative at  least in  a negative
sense.  In  certain  cases useful  -- taken  as part  of the
whole  picture....  Perhaps  under  the  uh circumstances."
The  doctor's  voice  shot  up  to  a  pathic  scream. "The
nurse will take your uh specimen."
  "This  way   please...."  The   nurse  opened   the  door
into a bare white walled cubicle. She handed him a jar.
  "Use this please. Just yell when you're ready."
  There  was  a jar  of K.Y.  on a  glass shelf.  Carl felt
ashamed  as  if  his  mother  had  laid out  a handkerchief
for him. Some coy little  message stitched  on like:  "If I
was a cunt we could open a dry goods store."
  Ignoring the  K.Y., he  ejaculated into  the jar,  a cold
brutal fuck of the nurse  standing her  up against  a glass
brick  wall.  "Old  Glass  Cunt,"  he  sneered,  and  saw a
cunt  full of  colored glass  splinters under  the Northern
Lights.
  He washed his penis and buttoned up his pants.
  Something  was  watching  his  every  thought  and  move-
ment with cold, sneering hate, the shifting of  his testes,
the contractions of  his rectum.  He was  in a  room filled
with  green  light. There  was a  stained wood  double bed,
a black wardrobe with  full length  mirror. Carl  could not
see his face. Someone was sitting in  a black  hotel chair.
He  was wearing  a stiff  bosomed white  shirt and  a dirty
paper tie. The face swollen, skull-less, eyes  like burning
pus.
  "Something  wrong?"  said  the  nurse  indifferently. She
was  holding  a  glass  of  water out  to him.  She watched
him  drink  with  aloof  contempt.  She  turned  and picked
up the jar with obvious distaste.
  The  nurse  turned  to  him: "Are  you waiting  for some-
thing   special?"   she  snapped.   Carl  had   never  been
spoken to like that in his adult  life. "Why  no...." "You
can go then," she  turned back  to the  jar. With  a little
exclamation of disgust  she wiped  a gob  of semen  off her
hand. Carl crossed the room and stood at the door.
  "Do I have another appointment?'
  She  looked  at  him  in  disapproving  surprise: "You'll
be notified of  course." She  stood in  the doorway  of the
cubicle  and  watched  him  walk  through  the  outer office
and  open  the  door.  He  turned  and  attempted  a jaunty
wave.  The  nurse did  not move  or change  her expression.
As  he  walked  down  the  stairs  the  broken,  false grin
burned   his   face  with   shame.  A   homosexual  tourist
looked  at  him  and  raised  a  knowing   eyebrow.  "Some-
thing wrong?"
  Carl  ran  into  a  park  and found  an empty  bench be-
side a bronze faun with cymbals.
  "Let your hair down, chicken.  You'll feel  better." The
tourist  was  leaning  over  him,  his camera  swinging in
Carl's face like a great dangling tit.
  "Fuck off you!"
  Carl  saw  something   ignoble  and   hideous  reflected
back in the queen's spayed animal brown eyes.
  "Oh!  I wouldn't  be calling  any names  if I  were you,
chicken.  You're  hooked  too.  I  saw  you coming  out of
The Institute."
  'What do you mean by that?" Carl demanded.
  "Oh nothing. Nothing at all."

  '%"Well, Carl," the doctor began smiling and keeping
his eyes on a level with Carl's mouth. "I have some
good news for you." He picked up a slip of blue paper
off the desk and went through an elaborate pantomime
of focusing his eyes on it. "Your uh test... the
ъobinson-Kleiberg floculation test..."
  "I thought it was a Blomberg-Stanlouski test."
  The doctor tittered. "Oh dear no.... You are getting
ahead of me young man. You might have misunder-
stood. The Blomberg-Stanlouski, weeell that's a different
sort of test altogether. I do hope... not necessary...."
He tittered again: "But as I was saying before I was so
charmingly interrupted... by my hurumph learned
young colleague. Your KS seems to be..." He held the
slip at arm's length. "...completely uh negative. So
perhaps we won't be troubling you any further. And
so..." He folded the slip carefully into a file. He leafed
through the file. Finally he stopped and frowned and
pursed his lips. He closed the  file and  put his  hand Hat
on it and leaned forward.
  "Carl,  when  you  were  doing your  military service...
There must  have been...  in fact  there were  long peri-
ods  when  you  found  yourself  deprived  of the  uh con-
solations and uh facilities of the fair sex.  During these
no  doubt  trying  and  difficult  periods you  had perhaps
a  pin  up  girl?  Or more  likely a  pin up  harem? Heh
heh heh..."
  Carl  looked at  the doctor  with overt  distaste. "Yes,
of course," he said. "We all did."
  "And  now,  Carl,  I  would  like to  show you  some pin
up girls." He  pulled an  envelope out  of a  drawer. "And
ask you to please  pick out  the one  you would  most like
to  uh  make  heh  heh  heh...."  He suddenly  leaned for-
ward  fanning  the  photographs in  front of  Carl's face.
"Pick a girl, any girl!"
  Carl  reached  out  with  numb  fingers and  touched one
of the  photographs. The  doctor put  the photo  back into
the  pack  and  shuffled and  cut and  he placed  the pack
on  Carl's  file  and  slapped it  smartly. He  spread the
photos face up in front of Carl. "Is she there?"
  Carl shook his head.
  "Of  course not.  She is  in here  where she  belongs. A
woman's  place  what??"  He  opened  the  file  and  held
out the girl's photo attached to a ъorshach plate.
  "Is that her?"
  Carl nodded silently.
  "You have good taste, my boy. I may tell you  in strict-
est  confidence  that  some of  these girls..."  with gam-
bler  fingers  he shifts  the photos  in Three  Card Monte
Passes -- "are really  boys. In  uh drag  I believe  is the
word?"  His eyebrows  shot up  and down  with incredi-
ble speed. Carl could not be sure  he had  seen anything
unusual. The doctor's face  opposite him  was absolutely
immobile  and  expressionless.  Once again  Carl experi-
enced the Hoating sensation in his stomach  and genitals
of a sudden elevator stop.
  "Yes, Carl, you seem to be running our little obstacle
course with flying colors.... I guess  you think  this is
all pretty silly don't you now... ???"
  "Well, to tell the truth... Yes..."
  "You  are  frank,  Carl...  This  is good....  And now
...Carl..."  He  dragged the  name out  caressingly like
a sweet con dick about to offer you an Old Gold  -- ( just
like  a  cop  to smoke  Old Golds  somehow) and  go into
his act....
  The con dick does a little dance step.
  "Why  don't  you  make  The  Man  a  proposition?"  he
jerks  a  head  towards his  glowering super-ego  who is
always referred to in the third person  as "The  Man" or
"The Lieutenant."
  "That's the way the Lieutenant is, you play  fair with
him and he'll  play fair  with you....  We'd like  to go
light on you.... If you could help us in some  way." His
words open out into a desolate  waste of  cafeterias and
street corners and lunch rooms.  Junkies look  the other
way munching pound cake.
  "The Fag is wrong."
  The Fag slumps in a  hotel chair  knocked out  on goof
balls with his tongue lolling out.
  He gets up in a goof ball trance, hangs  himself with-
out altering his expression or pulling his tongue in.
  The dick is diddling on a pad.
  "Know Marty Steel?" Diddle.
  "Yes."
  "Can you score off him?" Diddle? Diddle?
  "He's skeptical."
  "But  you  can  score."  Diddle  diddle "You  scored off
him last week didn't you?" Diddle???
  "Yes."
  "Well  you  can  score  off  him this  week." Diddle...
Diddle...  Diddle...  "You  can  score  off  him  today."
No diddle.
  "Not No! Not that!!"
  "Now look are you going to  cooperate" --  three vicious
diddles -- "or does the... does  the Man  cornhole you?"
He raises a fay eyebrow.
  "And  so Carl  you will  please oblige  to tell  me how
many  times  and  under   what  circumstances   you  have
uh  indulged  in  homosexual  acts???"  His  voice drifts
away. "If you have never done so I  shall be  inclined to
think  of  you  as  a somewhat  atypical young  man." The
doctor raises a coy admonishing  finger. "In  any case..."
He  tapped  the  file  and  flashed  a  hideous  leer. Carl
noticed that the file was  six inches  thick. In  fact it
seemed  to  have  thickened  enormously since  he entered
the room.
  "Well,  when  I  was   doing  my   military  service...
These  queers  used  to  proposition me  and sometimes...
when I was blank..."
  "Yes, of course, Carl," the doctor brayed heartily. "In
your position I  would have  done the  same I  don't mind
telling  you  heh  heh heh....  Well, E  guess we  can uh
dismiss as  irrelevent these  uh understandable  means of
replenishing  the  uh  exchequer.  And  now,  Carl,  there
were  perhaps"  --  one  finger tapped  the file  which gave
out a  faint effluvia  of moldy  jock straps  and chlorine-
"occasions.  When   no  uh   economic  factors   were  in-
volved."
  A  green  Hare exploded  in Carl's  brain. He  saw Hans'
lean  brown  body  --  twisting  towards him,  quick breath
on  his  shoulder.  The  Hare went  out. Some  huge insect
was squirming in his hand.
  His  whole  being jerked  away in  an electric  spasm of
revulsion.
  Carl got to his feet shaking with rage.
  "What are you writing there?" he demanded.
  "Do  you often  doze off  like that?P  in the  middle of
a conversation... P"
  "I wasn't asleep that is."
  "You weren't?"
  "It's just that the whole thing is unreal.... I'm going
now. I don't care. You can't force me to stay."
  He  was  walking  across  the  room  towards  the  door.
He  had  been  walking  a long  time. A  creeping numbness
dragged his legs. The door seemed to recede.
  "Where  can you  go, Carl?"  The doctor's  voice reached
him from a great distance.
  "Out... Away... Through the door..."
  "The Green Door, Carl?"
  The  doctor's  voice  was  barely  audible.   The  whole
room was exploding out into space.
   HAVE YOU SEEN PANTOPON ъOSE

  Stay away from Queens Plaza, son.... Evil spot
haunted by dicks scream for dope Bend lover.... Too
many levels.... Heat flares out from the broom closet
high on ammonia... like burning lions... fall on poor
old lush worker scare her veins right down to the bone.
...Her skin-pop a week or do that five-twenty-nine
kick handed out free and gratis by NYC to jostling
junkies....
  So Fag, Beagle, Irish, Sailor beware.... Look down,
look down along that line before you travail there....
  The subway sweeps by with a black blast of iron....
  -- Queens Plaza is a bad spot for lush workers.... Too
many levels and lurking places for subway heat, and
impossible to cover when you put the hand out....
  Five months and twenty-nine days: sentence given
for "jostling," that is, touching a Hop with obvious
intent.... Innocent people may be convicted of murder
but not of jostling.
  Fag, Beagle, Irish, Sailor, old time, junkies and lush-
workers of my acquaintance.... The old 103rd street
klatch.... Sailor and Irish hanged themselves in the
Tombs.... The Beagle is dead of an overdose and the
Fag went wrong....
  "Have you seen Pantopon ъose?" said the old junky.
..."Time to cosq," put on a black overcoat and made
the square.... Down skid road to Market Street
Museum shows all kinds masturbation and self-abuse.
Young boys need it special....
  The gangster in concrete rolls down the river chan-
nel....  They  cowboyed  him in  the steam  room.... Is
this Cherry  Ass Gio  the Towel  Boy or  Mother Gillig,
Old  Auntie  of Westminster  Place?P Only  dead fingers
talk in Braille....
  The Mississippi rolls  great limestone  boulders down
the silent alley....
  "Clutter the glind!" screamed  the Captain  of Moving
Land....
  Distant  rumble  of  stomachs....   Poisoned  pigeons
rain from  the Northern  Lights.... The  reservoirs are
empty....  Brass  statues  crash  through   the  hungry
squares and alleys of the gaping city....
  Probing for a vein in the junk-sick morning....
  Strictly from cough syrup...
  A thousand junkies storm  the crystal  spine clinics,
cook down the Grey Ladies....
  In the limestone cave  met a  man with  Medusa's head
in a hat  box and  said, "Be  Careful," to  the Customs
Inspector....  Freezed  forever hand  an inch  from the
false bottom....
  Window  dressers  scream  through  the  station, beat
the cashiers  with the  fairy hype....  (The Hype  is a
short change con.... Also known as The Bill....)
  "Multiple fracture," said the big  physician.... "I'm
very technical...."
  Conspicuous  consumption is  rampant in  the porticos
slippery with Koch spit....
  The centipede nuzzles  the iron  door rusted  to thin
black paper by the urine of a million fairies....
  This is no rich mother load, but vitiate dust, second
run cottons trace the bones of a fix....
          COKE BUGS

  The  Sailor's  grey  felt  hat  and  black  overcoat  hung
twisted   in  atrophied   yen-wait.  Morning   sun  outlined
The  Sailor  in  the orange-yellow  flame of  junk. He  had a
paper  napkin  under  his  coffee  cup --  mark of  those who
do a lot of sitting over coffee in the  plazas, restaurants,
terminals  and  waiting rooms  of the  world. A  junky, even
at  the  Sailor's  level,  runs  on  junk  Time and  when he
makes  his importunate  irruption into  the Time  of others,
like  all  petitioners,  he  must  wait.  (How  many  coffees
in an hour? )
  A  boy  came in  and sat  at the  counter in  broken lines
of  long,  sick  junk-wait.  The  Sailor shivered.  His face
fuzzed  out  of  focus  in  a  shuddering  brown  mist.  His
hands moved  on the  table, reading  the boy's  Braille. His
eyes  traced little  dips and  circles, following  whorls of
brown  hair on  the boy's  neck in  a slow,  searching move-
ment.
  The  boy  stirred  and  scratched  the  back of  his neck:
"Something  bit  me,  Joe.  What kinda  creep joint  you run
here?"
  "Coke  bugs,  kid,"  Joe  said,  holding  eggs  up  to the
light.  "I was  travelling with  Irene Kelly  and her  was a
sporting  woman.  In  Butte,  state  of  Montany,   her  got
the  coke  horrors  and  run  through  the  hotel  screaming
Chinese  coppers  chase  her  with  meat  cleavers.  I  knew
this cop in  Chi sniff  coke used  to come  in form  of cry-
stals, blue  crystals. So  her go  nuts and  start screaming
the  Federals  is  after  him  and run  down this  alley and
stick his head in  the garbage  can. And  I said,  'What you
think  you  are doing?  and her  say, 'Get  away or  I shoot
you!  I got  myself led  good!' When  the roll  is called
up yonder we'll be there, right?"
  Joe looked at the Sailor  and spread  his hands  in the
junky shrug.
  The Sailor spoke in his feeling voice  that reassembles
in your head, spelling out the  words with  cold fingers:
"Your connection is broken, kid."
  The  boy shied.  His street-boy  face, torn  with black
scars  of junk,  retained a  wild, broken  innocence; shy
animals peering out through grey arabesques of terror.
  "I don't dig you, Jack."
  The  Sailor leapt  into sharp,  junky focus.  He turned
back his coat lapel, showing a brass hypo  needle covered
with mold  and verdigris.  "ъetired for  the good  of the
service....  Sit  down  and  have  a blueberry  crumb pie
on  the expense  account. Your  monkey loves  it.... Make
his coat glossy."
  The boy felt a touch on  his arm  across eight  feet of
morning  lunch  room. He was  suddenly siphoned  into the
booth, landing with  an inaudible  shlup. He  looked into
the Sailor's eyes, a green universe stirred by cold black
currents.
  "You are agent, mister?"
  "I prefer  the word...  vector." His  sounding laughter
vibrated through the boy's substance.
  "You holding, man? I got the bread...."
  "I don't want your money, Honey: I want your Time."
  "I don't dig."
  "You   want   fix?  You   want  straight?   You  wanta,
nooood?"
  The  Sailor  cradled  something  pink and  vibrated out
of focus.
  "Yeah."
  "We'll  take  the  Independent.  Got their  own special
heat, don't carry guns only  saps. I  recall, me  and the
Fag fell once in  Queen's Plaza.  Stay away  from Queen's
Plaza,  son...  evil  spot...  fuzz  haunted.   Too  many
levels.  Heat  Hares out  from the  broom closet  high on
ammonia  like  burning  lions...  fall  on poor  old lush
worker,  scare  her  veins  right down  to the  bone. Her
skin pop a week or do  that five-twenty-nine  kick handed
out free  and gratis  by NYC  to jostling  junkies.... So
Fag,  Beagle,  Irish,  Sailor  beware!  Look  down,  look
down along that line before you travel there...."
  The  subway  sweeps  by  with  a  black blast  of iron.

        THE EXTEъMINATOъ DOES A GOOD JOB

  The  Sailor  touched  the  door gently,  following pat-
terns of painted oak in a slow twist, leaving faint, iri-
descent  whorls  of slime.  His arm  went through  to the
elbow.  He  pulled back  an inside  bolt and  stood aside
for the boy to enter.
  Heavy, colorless smell of death filled the empty room.
  "The  trap  hasn't  been  aired since  the Exterminator
fumigated for coke bugs," said the Sailor apologetically.
  The boy's peeled  senses darted  about in  frenzied ex-
ploration.  Tenement  Hat,  railroad  Hat  vibrating with
silent  motion.  Along one  wall of  the kitchen  a metal
trough -- or was it metal, exactly? -- ran  into a  sort of
aquarium or tank half-filled with translucent green fluid.
Moldy  objects,  worn  out  in unknown  service, littered
the  Boor: a  jock-strap designed  to protect  some delicate
organ  of Hat,  fan-shape; multi-levelled  trusses, supports
and  bandages;  a  large  U-shaped   yoke  of   porous  pink
stone; little lead tubes cut open at one end.
  Currents  of   movement  from   the  two   bodies  stirred
stagnant  odor  pools; atrophied  boy-smell of  dusty locker
rooms,   swimming   pool   chlorine,   dried   semen.  Other
smells  curled  through  pink  convolutions,   touching  un-
known doors.
  The   Sailor   reached  under   the  wash-stand   and  ex-
tracted  a  package  in  wrapping  paper  that  shredded and
fell from his fingers in  yellow dust.  He laid  out dropper,
needle  and  spoon  on  a table  covered with  dirty dishes.
But no roach antennae felt for the crumbs of darkness.
  "The  Exterminator  does  a  good  job," said  the Sailor.
"Almost too good, sometimes."
  He  dipped  into   a  square   tin  of   yellow  pyretheum
powder  and  pulled  out  a  Hat  package  covered   in  red
and gold Chinese paper.
  "Like  a  firecracker  package,"   the  boy   thought.  At
fourteen  lost  two  fingers....  Fourth  of  July  fireworks
accident... later, in the hospital, first silent proprietary
touch of junk.
  "They go off, here,  kid." The  Sailor put  a hand  to the
back  of  his  head.  He  camped  obscenely  as   he  opened
the  package,  a  complex  arrangement  of  slots  and over-
lays.
  "Pure,  one  hundred  per  cent  H.  Scarcely  a   man  is
now alive... and it's all yours."
  "So what you want off me?"
  "Time."
  "I don't dig."
  "I  have  something  you  want,"  his  hand  touched  the
package. He  drifted away  into the  front room,  his voice
remote  and   blurred.  "You   have  something   I  want...
five  minutes  here...  an   hour  someplace   else...  two
...four...  eight...  Maybe  I'm   getting  ahead   of  my-
self....  Every  day  die  a  little....  It  takes  up The
Time...."
  He  moved  back  in